BassmanPaul

I too am going through my gear and giving away pieces os I go along. I have so much equipment that I hardly know where to start! LOL

Hey Pete, I have some inkling of what you are going through and I wish You all the strength you'll need to get through it. In 1988 when he was sixteen my younger son was involved in a car acccident that left him with a broken neck a paralised from the shoulders down. Our lives changed drastically. We had to find a new house that could be renovated to suit his needs. After a search involving 75 houses we found this one. The changes, like adding an elevator, cost $187K which we had to find! Cut to present day and he bought himself a Condo and went out with his attendant one day and never came back! But that's enough of my story. I no longer play out and haven't picked up a bass since the time of Covid. That said I do have a lot of knowledge and try to pass it on to help my fellows.

@Woodinblack there is only one thing to say to you from all the way over here and that is <singing> Coates comes up from Somerset where the Cider apples grow!

Get to it my friend! Don't let we Canucks down! LOL

Pictures or it didn't happen!

Indeed my '63 Precision does sound wonderful through my Ampeg!

Persona;lly I would go for the Ampeg. Ampeg and bass go together naturally. Fender do not. My Ampeg B15NF is a delight to play through and always makes me smile no matter my mood. I have never got on with Fender bass amps.

I've just had a delivery too! 24 cans od Ricards Red beer and 24 cans of Keiths IPA. I think I'll enjoy them as much as the OP will his V4B! LOL Besides it's 33C outside at the moment. Our two air conditioners are working hard to keep us a 23C indoors.!

Those systems are hardly worth setting up!!

Just a note to the OP. Ladies play our instrument too. One of them could have your answer but you excluded them with your "Hi chaps." 😒

Speakers need to be matched to their enclosure. With the neos. the cab could sound lovely or the speakers could just tear themselves to bits. Why buy a cabinet just to change the drivers? When you could just put together or have one made for you, a suitable box to mount the neos in? The manufacturer of the neos would probably have suitable plans for such an enclosure. It would be cheaper than this plan.

Can't wait to see it!!

That model GK showed up in the search I did too.

Did you get the manual that comes with the unit? If you did then read the manual carefully. Maybe you bought a faulty unit and it needs to be returned to Ashdown for service.

You make me want to put one together but I don't have speakers that would suit a 100W amp.

My only suggestion would be a search on-line to find what you are looking for. I entered 'bass combos' into my Safari task bar and got a few hits but they are all over on this side of the pond. 😄

I was from Liverpool but left the UK in early 1973 for our new life in Toronto. There used to be some great music shops in Manchester that I would visit. I'm sorry that things have changed so much.

I have no experience of Phil Jones amplifiers but as an engineer I have always distrusted them for the reasons Bill has mentioned.There are so many combos out there that I feel would work better for you. May I humbly suggest trips to music stores and try out as many combos as you can. Remember that bass and small really don't go together that well! LOL

Now you know how tubes make a bass sing! Enjoy!

I would monitor the operation of the internal fan and carry on using it. Using a distortion pedal will cause the amplifier to run closer to its limits. There should be enough protection against overheating built into the unit - hopefully!

That would do it for sure. The amp will be cooler running into an 8Ω load that if it was pushing a 4Ω one.

Remember less is more when it comes to DeOxit!

A short spray of Deoxit should fix that for you. Shouldn't cost too much for a tech to fix this for you.

I do have a full tube amplifier. It sits at the bottom of the stairs to my basement 'studio.' The amp is an Ampsg B15NF from the sixties. Playing through it is a delight. No matter the mood I'm in plugging into this amplifier brings a smile to my face and a rise in my mood! I love that thing.. When it first arrived I had a JBL 2225 doing nothing so I installed it in the combo. It sounded great BUT there was 'something' missing. After a time I reinstalled the original driver with its square magnet and the 'something' was back. The JBL went back into it's box and back into storage.